Playing Families
by padfoot's prose
Summary: In a perfect world, every family would be like theirs and every day would be a game, filled with laughter and smiles and Kurt's endless chatter. But the Hummels can't keep playing families forever. Eventually, their game will end.


**I've been trying to get a hold of Kurt's characterisation, looking at a few of the different ways that I could tell his stories, and this idea popped into my head. The initial idea was much shorter and sweeter, but then it got a bit more serious and now it has ended up at this.**

**Also, this is a prime example of the obvious ways in which my mind works. I am honestly worried that when trying to think of a name that worked with Kurt's, all I could think of was Dwayne. Because that's not _at all_ like Blaine. Nope.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, so anyone you recognise is not mine. Even Juliette Hummel isn't really mine, because she was inspired by Juliet-Hummel-Anderson, who sent me a prompt for 'Something New' which made my head instantly think of this as Kurt's mother's name.**

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><p><em>- Playing Families -<em>

...

In a perfect world, every family would be like theirs. They'd have a Burt who works hard and plays harder, a Kurt who grins and cries and dramatises everything, and a Juliette who holds them all together. Every day would be like a game, seeing who gets to play the good guy and drop Kurt off each morning and who has to play the bad guy and force him away from his friends every afternoon.

But Juliette Hummel spends more time in hospital than any mother should have to, because once there'd been a lump - a little flaw that got in the way of their perfect little life. It had been removed, and life had returned to normal for a while. Then there'd been another lump. That one was benign. So was the next.

So is this one, she hopes.

That's the problem with cancer. It keeps coming back, like a raven that nests in your yard every spring. Every time you see it, you shoo it away and hope that it won't return. Every time you know, though, that it's going to be back.

"How are you feeling?" Burt asks, and Juliette turns her head to smile at the man in the doorway, her gaze dropping down to the kid who grins beside him.

"Tired," she replies. "But glad to see my boys."

Burt's hand lifts from his son's shoulder and Kurt catapults himself across the room, leaping onto the bed and into his mother's arms. She smiles and pulls him in, tucking his head under her chin and petting his back as he sighs into her neck, breathing in her smell.

"Wanna know what happened at school today?" Kurt asks, turning his head to peer up at her.

Juliette looks back at Burt, who has wandered over in the wake of their son. He leans down to kiss her lips gently, a hand just brushing her cheek before it slides down to give Kurt a tap on the nose.

Kurt wriggles back, giggling, and his parents exchange smiles.

"Tell me what happened," Juliette invites, moving over to give Kurt the space to lie beside her on the slim hospital bed. Her left arm stays curled around him, his five year-old form tiny beside her, while her right hand slips out from under the sheets to entwine with Burt's, hanging in the air between them and he lowers himself into the chair by her bedside.

"Well, today at recess, Dwayne, Karla, Stacey and me-"

"And I," Juliette interjects.

"-and _I_, wanted to play families, and Stacey and Dwayne were going to be the mummy and daddy and Karla was the baby and I was the cat. But I didn't want to be the cat, and Dwayne said I should be the mummy because I was better at making mud pies than Stacey was and I brang the apron to school-"

"Brought."

"_Brought_ the apron to school."

Kurt barely seems to need to breathe between sentences, and Burt gives his wife's hand a squeeze every time she interrupts, forcing their son to inhale deeply before he chatters on.

"But Stacey said I _couldn't_ be the mummy because only girls can be the mummy, but then Dwayne said that his uncle lives with a boy and they're still a family, even though there isn't a mummy. So mummies don't have to be girls, and Karla said she thought I was a better mummy too, so then me and Dwayne got to be the mummy and daddy and Stacey had to be the dog (because she said she wouldn't be a cat) and we made her all this yucky food and she had to eat it because dogs eat all kinds of yucky food."

"Hey, hang on there! You didn't actually make her eat anything, did you?" Burt asks, his voice light and teasing.

Kurt shakes his head emphatically, "_No_, because once when Karla ate a berry off the ground she got really sick and frew up everywhere. It was gross."

"Threw up, honey," Juliette chides lightly. "But it sounds like you had a good day. Did you like being the mummy?"

She stares down at her son as he furrows his eyebrows, thinking hard.

"Ummmm..."

Beside her, Burt gives her hand another squeeze. _That's our son_, it says, _he's perfect_.

"Yes, but I like being the daddy too," Kurt finally decides. "I think I like being both. I don't like being the cat."

Burt nods, making a sound of agreement, "I wouldn't like being the cat all the time either. Does Stacey always make you the cat?"

"Sometimes. She lets me be the daddy too though, but not when Dwayne plays. I think she has a crush on Dwayne, but he says girls are icky and he likes me more. I like him more too."

There's a silence, just a beat, as Burt's hand goes tense in Juliette's. They both hear the truth the words, and neither knows how to react to it.

They know, they've known for a long time, that Kurt isn't exactly... well, there's no way to say it, no way that conveys who he is now and the type of boy they can both see he's growing up to be. It doesn't make him any less of a son – he's still a boy, still a child, still perfect – but it makes them wary of moments like this. They're waiting for the day when Kurt hears his words the way they hear them. Waiting for the day when he knows enough about vocabulary and language and semantics to place a label on himself, declare himself to be what they both suspect he is.

"That's nice," Juliette says, and it feels like the silence was too long but Kurt hasn't even noticed.

After all, he's only five years old. He doesn't know what 'gay' means, let alone that he might be it. He doesn't know what it means to like boys the way he does, doesn't realise that it's any different to what every other kid his age is feeling.

Juliette wonders if it's her own prejudices, her own assumptions, that make her so sure of who Kurt is. Perhaps he isn't gay at all, perhaps he's just kind and delicate and careful. Perhaps this is all a phase, and one day he'll ask for a Tonka truck for his birthday and the illusion will be shattered. Or perhaps he'll stay like this for the rest of his life, growing up with Dwayne as they learn about the world together.

She squeezes Burt's hand again as Kurt curls up to bury into her side, suddenly conscious of where they are and how temporary this moment is. She feels as if their entire lives are poised on the edge, like anything could happen to move this situation they're in – this perpetual state of joy and happiness and comfort. Surely, too soon, cruel reality will push them over the cliff.

But this is her perfect little family and, for now, everyone's safe.

"I think Dwayne's my best friend," Kurt murmurs. "I liked playing families with him. I think his uncle's family sounds cool. Dwayne says maybe we can be like them when we grow up. That way we don't have to have any mean girls around. And no dogs."

"That sounds perfect," Juliette whispers back. "Promise me I can come and visit, though."

Kurt considers for a moment then nods, kissing her on the cheek.

"You're the only girl that's allowed," he tells her, and she smiles, imagining the future that could await them all, if everything goes to plan.

Of course, nothing ever goes to plan. Juliette is getting used to that.

This lump is benign and so is the next, but the one after that isn't. She spends even more time in hospital, and this time, whenever Kurt and Burt come to visit, they don't smile and talk and laugh as much as they used to.

One night, as Kurt sleeps in the beside chair on Burt's lap, Juliette lies awake and cries for the life she's going to miss. Not her own, but her son's. She wants to know the future of her sweet little boy, who only just now has started to suspect that maybe he's different.

Thousands of 'perhaps's swim in her head and she's dizzy and tired and so, so sick, but she doesn't want to stop thinking about them. It's like Kurt's playing families again and she's trying to figure out how the game will end. It's impossible to guess though, and so she goes through every scenario, every possible ending, just in case, because she's scared of not seeing them in person.

What will Kurt become, she wonders. A pilot, a fireman, a lawyer, a teacher, a dancer, a vet, a doctor, an actor, a soldier-? There's too much, far, far too much to make sure she's got it all, but she tries to picture each and every future all the same. The one with the wife and child and the white picket fence. The one with the apartment and the book deal and the scores of fans. The one with the husband with the dog, where Kurt is too in love to even notice he's broken his rule.

"Let him be happy," she prays to the silence, her voice merely a breath. "Make him happy."

Burt's eyes flutter in the still, crisp air, his fingers twitching where they hold onto his son. Kurt whimpers against the demons of his dreams – the ones with claws like Stacey's as she shouts words that he didn't even know were bad – pulling his mum away. And Juliette's prayer dies on her lips, her tears drying on her cheeks, as her son's perfect futures blaze eternally through her mind.

One day, her son will be playing families again. But this game has finished for her.


End file.
